Introduction to the 10th Magnitude Managed Services Customer Portal

10th Magnitude delivers agility, security, cost management, and stability in your cloud environment so you can focus on what you do best – run your business and innovate.

Our Managed Services use Provance (2018 Microsoft Business Application Platform Partner of the Year) to provide a suite of IT service management capabilities delivered through our easy to use customer portal. Our customer portal is a fast way to ask for help but it can be used for so much more. For example, automated deployment of resources in Azure, Configuration Management, Routing Approvals, Billing and Invoices, and Access to our Knowledge Base.

Features

Our customer portal features four main areas:

Knowledge Base: Contains numerous support references, created by our support professionals. It is constantly updated, expanded, and refined to ensure access to the very latest information.

My Support: Provides quick access to view all previously submitted requests as well as their overall status and dates. Additionally, a new request can also be opened from this page.

Service Cataloge: A customizable list of services that gives access to the automated actions that make the most sense for your organization.

Approvals: Access an updated status of all Service and Change Request approvals. It includes the name of the request, dates, relevant contacts, and whether it is pending, approved, or rejected.

How it works

Example 1: Imagine a scenario where multiple teams have access to create resources in Azure at will.

‘Team A’ deploys 40 VMs of various sizes

‘Team B’ deploys 23 VMs, App Gateways, and an NVA

‘Team C’ Deploys a SQL database and several Web Apps.

Everything is in a different resource group, each with different access permissions, naming conventions, and lifecycles. Cloud sprawl begins to take over and resources begin to ‘slip through the cracks’. How do you control each environment without hindering the speed of your development teams? How do you control Azure spend? How do you track who has done what and in what subscription?

Meet the Service Catalog. Users have fine-grained control over a Windows VM deployed in Azure. They can deploy a pre-determined size VM and start/stop/move and resize it as needed. This could be applied to any deployable resource (or entire environments) using ARM templates and our automation capabilities.

Example 2: With a focus on security and user focus, let’s say a VM gets deployed from the market place. The problem is that it is open to remote access (RDP/SSH) from anywhere by default. The VM will almost certainly be scanned, and brute force attempts begin shortly after. Had this VM been deployed from our customer portal, with default remote access blocked, we could eliminate those brute force attempts.

You may ask, how do the real users get access? Great question. A request is submitted through the service portal with the machine name and source IP which then the network security group is automatically adjusted to allow access. Additionally, an approval process could be added if required. Now we have a more secure deployment and a record of what changes have been made and who requested them.

Learn more

Our Managed Services customer portal can give end-users self-service access to things they need while also providing much needed guardrails around what they can and can’t deploy in to Azure. The customized deployment and automation options can be tailored to fit the specific needs of an organization. A win for developers, security, operations, and a win for finance.

10th Magnitude maintains a cloud-first mind set and is committed to providing Modern Service Management by automating the ‘boring stuff’ so that you and your teams can focus on what you know best: your business.